Grue

Grues were among the legendary or “fictional” creatures kept in the Zoo of the Strange and Wonderful House. An old, experienced zookeeper once told a young recruit that one of the pieces of knowledge from works of fiction which she'd find came in handy as a zookeeper in this particular Zoo was “what to do to keep Grues away”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Zoo)

Behind the scenes

The name of “grue” was originally coined for human-bat hybrids from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth book series, and they also well-known for their role as generic monsters in the 1977 text adventure game Zork.